Page 109 of Inked Adonis

I blink the image away now. “Guilt has a way of eating away at a person.”

Myles tilts his head, studying me for a beat. Then he sighs yet again. “For what it’s worth, ‘glorified babysitter’ or not, I did do my job, you know. Snapping the phone in half didn’t make said job any easier, but I was able to sift through the shrapnel you left me and find the internal memory. I gave it a thorough search.”

Despite my better judgment, I ask, “And?”

I never really went as far as to imagine what Nova would’ve told Kat—the kind of information she would’ve shared. Even now, when I’m trying, I still can’t.

What could she have told her?

How my face looks when I bury myself inside her and feel like I can finally breathe again?

How, when both of us have come and floated back down to earth, we stay intertwined like the mere thought of letting each other go is pure agony?

How I want her when she’s just a room away?

How she’s brought me to my knees, again and again and again, how she’s made me lose control, and how I’ve never once thought to hate her for that? How I loved her for it instead?

“Nova held onto that phone for a week and never even powered it on, brother,” Myles says quietly. “No texts. No calls. She didn’t breathe a word to Katerina.”

She’s innocent.

She did not betray you.

Her only crime was making you love her.

“She kept the phone,” I growl. “That’s enough.”

He runs a hand through his shorn hair. “If being skeeved out by Katerina is a crime, then we’re all guilty. But hey—you’re the boss. If you’re happy with how things went, then so am I. The grim silence in this penthouse is the sound of success. Cherish it.” Myles downs the rest of his coffee and puts his mug in the sink. “Anyway, I’ve got shit to do. Babysitting is a full-time gig, apparently.”

“When did she say she was coming back?” I ask just before he’s out of the room.

“She didn’t.”

I stand at the counter long after Myles leaves, hating how transparent I’ve become. The penthouse feels wrong—too quiet,too empty, too much like the fortress it was before Nova crashed into my life.

The sound of success,Myles called it. No, it’s the sound of fucking disaster.

Last night, I convinced myself her absence would make things simpler. Cleaner. The way they used to be, when I could focus on what matters: power, control, survival.

The tasks ahead are too crucial for distractions. Ilya’s preparing his next move. Katerina and the Andropovs are circling. Father’s mood changes with the winds, and who the fuck knows what the next shift will bring to my doorstep.

I don’t need Nova’s scent on my sheets or her laugh echoing through these rooms or her stupid documentaries playing in the background while I work.

But as I stare at the coffee stains on marble, all I can think about is how she dances while she makes breakfast, how she hums when she thinks no one’s listening, how she looks at me like I’m something more than the violence in my blood.

The women who came before her wanted my money, my name, my power. Nova just wanted me.

And I repaid that trust by treating her like every other threat to my empire.

Rufus butts his head against my leg with a whine that sounds too much like an accusation. When I meet his dark eyes, I see the same emptiness there that’s threatening to swallow me whole.

He doesn’t understand why she’s gone. Neither do I, not really.

I can justify my reaction. She kept secrets. She met with Katerina. She put herself at risk.

But she also stood between Ilya’s gun and this mutt without hesitation. She calls me out on my bullshit. She makes me want to be worthy of the way she looks at me.

My father would say I’m weak for even considering this. Ilya would laugh. The other Bratva families would see it as a vulnerability to exploit.

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